Bara’s extravagant image was the source of her fame, but it likewise shackled her to a very specific set of behaviors — and ways of appearing in public and on the screen. And like all star images, its potency, and its particular social resonance, faded with time. By 1920, Bara’s career was effectively over, and today, only one of her major films remains intact. But for a brief moment in cinematic history, her image functioned as a volatile conduit for displaced female desire. Bara’s image was the immaculate conflation of sex and evil, and in an era still governed by rigid codes of moral, spiritual, and social behavior, it was absolutely irresistible.

I'd have to dig it out of my car, but I think she's quite cited in Goth Chic (Baddeley, 2006).posted by adipocere at 12:32 PM on March 29, 2013

One of my greatest secret pleasures is that my spouse looks a LOT like Theda Bara.posted by kyrademon at 1:21 PM on March 29, 2013 [4 favorites]

You go, girl! - bewitching all the menfolk despite apparently wearing layers of Snuggies. "A Fool There Was" is due for a remake. (Try playing some Led Zep while you watch it.)posted by Wylie Kyoto at 1:46 PM on March 29, 2013

Theda Bara is just riveting in A Fool There Was. The other actors have this stilted, vaudevillian theater style, and she's amazingly modern and fluid by comparison. She's very much a movie actor.posted by Nibbly Fang at 2:09 PM on March 29, 2013

I remember seeing those pictures of Bara when I was in high school and thinking "what could that absolutely blank expression possibly be trying to get across?"

'I am seductive and wicked' did not occur to me.posted by jamjam at 3:24 PM on March 29, 2013

Does this mean that Lady Gaga will one day lose her appeal?posted by mecran01 at 4:10 PM on March 29, 2013

And for about three years, they did. Between 1915 and 1918, she appeared in thirty-three films. The Galley Slave, Sin, Destruction, The Serpent, The Tiger Woman, The Rose of Blood, The Forbidden Path, When a Woman Sins – you get the jist.

"Jist" is the combo of jism and gist.posted by telstar at 7:16 PM on March 30, 2013

I finally got around to reading this. It would have been better with less lecturing.posted by bongo_x at 12:39 AM on April 21, 2013

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